Beach water quality update

Westboro Beach received a lot of attention this summer because of the number of days that the beach was closed for swimming. Out of a season of 65 days, the beach was posted with a no-swimming advisory for 23 days. 14 of these postings were the result of elevated E. coli levels and 9 of the postings were caused by the ‘rain rule’…in other words, after heavy rains it is assumed that storm water runoff will cause pollution at the beach.

A report prepared by Baird Associates on the Bacterial Assessment at Westboro Beach was made available this past Spring (and can be viewed on our website). The findings of the report are somewhat inconclusive, but they do confirm that storm sewer discharges from outfalls upstream of Westboro Beach are key contributors to the bacterial contamination at the beach during wet weather.

Alternatives to mitigate the issues at Westboro Beach are presented in the report and fundamentally the WBCA supports a stormwater detention alternative. I’ve been involved with Don Paskovich and John Almstedt in reviewing the report findings with Baird Associates and city representatives. An objective of our community association is to make sure that Westboro Beach continues to receive attention when it comes to funding for storm water infrastructure improvements